I think we’ve all given up on getting a typical wet season, one with two or three significant monsoonal bursts, with blinding rain, spectacular light shows and haunting thunder claps.
You can look left and right and you’ll soon see where the real monsoons have gone: north Queensland and the west Kimberley.
And yet the weird thing is that we’ve had enough rain just the same to deliver average or better monthly rainfall figures at several locations across the Top End.
As has been the case for several years now, the Daly River and its catchments have received the brunt of the rainfall.
All last week and early this week, the Daly has been rising.
The mild flooding of the Katherine River has certainly contributed to this.
Only on Tuesday, the Daly River at the main crossing stopped rising at about 9m and was tagged as “steady”.
I doubt it will stay that way once the avalanche of water in the Katherine River hits the Daly and flows down.
Without doubt, the Daly is one of the best Runoff fishing rivers in the Top End.
It can fish well January to after March and, more so than other big tidal rivers in the NT, the Daly can rise and fall quickly.
For example, the Daly’s catchment and lower tidal floodplains might receive heavy rains in January, which seems to have happened this year.
It’s not an unusual scenario and the consequence might be a rise in river level downstream from the Daly River crossing by several metres.
However, following a significant rainfall event, suddenly there could be blue skies and a falling river.
That’s the clue; that’s the window: when the river height in a flooded Daly River starts to fall, that’s when the barra can turn it on… and it can happen three or four times over the wet season and the Runoff.
Could it be that this is shortly to occur this year?
Tides are just as important during the Runoff as at any other time of year; it’s just that tidal movement may not be as noticeable when the river is flooding.
Typically during the Runoff – or windows of receding river height – the bottom half of the tide and the very early run-in are the best fishing periods.
Mainly you’ll be fishing feeder creeks which are flowing tannin-coloured water into the murkier waters of the main river.
As the tide drops, the water in a feeder creek gets sucked out more, and more barra tucker is pushed out the creek mouth.
It’s a recipe for a good bite.
However, there are so many parameters, and none more important than matching the hatch.
Whatever barra food is coming down a feeder creek and swirling into the main river is what you need to replicate with your lure selection.
That’s not always possible because, often as not, you can’t see what the barra might be feeding on and, just as importantly, at what depth.
If you have sidescan – or Active Live Target and know how to use it – you can soon work out the approximate depth that fish are holding at.
Lure selection can then be a matter of trial and error.
Depending on how high the Daly is when its flood water begins to recede, creek mouths are not the only places to look for barra.
Mini waterfalls where the water is coming straight off a floodplain and dropping into the river sometimes hold barra.
Back eddies behind bends in the river can produce too.
Always try to fish water with the best clarity, simply because it’s easier for barra to see your lure.
Where water clarity is just too yucky, try surface lures which make plenty of noise.
In recent years, one of the problems with fishing the Runoff down the Daly is that a lot of anglers have the same idea in mind.
It’s a popular river and there are just so many spots to go round.
It’s why so many anglers sleep in their boats nowadays: so they have a spot covered for when the sun comes up.
Mind you, some beautiful fish get caught at night at anchor too.
Tim Kubale caught this 97cm barra down the Daly River last week fishing with Jim Keogh and Brenton Slade.
Brenton Slade with one of more than 30 barra the trio caught.
